William Osler Quotes
To confess ignorance is often wiser than to beat about the bush with a hypothetical diagnosis.
Bean, Robert Bennett, and William Bennett Bean, editors. Sir William Osler: Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings. Charles C Thomas, 1950, p. 126.
1st Earl of Beaconsfield
He had been asked how to solve the housing problem of the Great Recession. Rarely do major public figures admit ignorance on a major issue. Even if they have no specific solutions, they provide general platitudes and further describe the solution. If they are politicians, they then tend to blame the opposition for the existence of the problem.
This proverb was one that was selected by Leo Tolstoy in his 1908 Calendar of Wisdom. It is one of the most rare statements that politicians ever utter.
It is amazing that so few politicians and political appointees when asked questions by constituents, subordinates, or the press can bring themselves to say “I don’t know” when they are ignorant about the issue or have not yet made up their minds. It is as if ignorance was a weakness. When the politicians have to face so many complex issues, the reality is that they do not know about most of them, yet they are loathe to admit ignorance in particular situations.
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, FRS FRCP was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training. He has frequently been described as the Father of Modern Medicine and one of the "greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope". Osler was a person of many interests, who in addition to being a physician, was a bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. One of his achievements was the founding of the History of Medicine Society (previously section) of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.
